Where would you fish first?

It’s tempting to cast to the far bank. Before you wade out, watch the line of bubbles on your side. There’s a strip of slower water beside it where a trout can sit and let the current bring food past its nose. Your first cast might be a short one, made from dry land.

If you can rig a rod and cast a fly but aren’t always sure which water to fish or which fly to choose, this lesson is for you. You and your guide work through those decisions together. The idea is to know where to start the next time you’re standing on a riverbank on your own.

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What we do on the river ↓

Find the feeding water

Where does the shallow gravel give way to deeper water? Where do two currents meet? We look at food, depth and cover together. A rise is a useful clue, but you can still choose a likely lie when there isn’t a fish showing.

Choose your approach

Once you’ve picked a lie, look at the water between you and it. We work out what you can fish from the bank, where a few steps might give you a better angle, and how to get there without putting a shadow or a fly line over the fish.

Watch what the fly does

We choose a dry fly or a nymph to suit what the trout are feeding on and where they’re taking it. If your dry fly overtakes the bubbles beside it (dragging), try changing the angle or moving a little line (mending) before changing the fly. You can see what difference it makes on the very next drift.

Half day: work on one thing

A good choice when you can name the problem. Perhaps you find rising trout but struggle to get a clean drift over them. We can take our time on suitable water and work out whether it’s your position, the line or the fly that needs to change.

Full day: make the next call yourself

Choose the longer session for time to try the same ideas on different water. We might read the first run together. At the next one, you pick where to start and how to fish it. Your guide is there to hear your thinking and help you test it.

Our water around Alexandra and Thornton

We’ve guided the Goulburn and Rubicon rivers since 1994. Most streamcraft sessions are on the Goulburn, about two hours from Melbourne. We choose the stretch for the river height, the season and the fishing you’d like to work on. When another local river suits the lesson better, we can go there instead.

Fishing with care matters here. Sometimes the best approach is to stay on the bank. We’ll talk about when to wade, how to leave a fish undisturbed and how to wade safely.